Thursday, December 7, 2017

Oldest Black Hole & Image of the Early Universe Discovered

Big news from the astronomical, astrophysics and cosmological world! Astronomers using Carnegie's Magellan telescopes at the Carnegie Institution for Science made a huge discovery. The farthest supermassive black hole was observed. This black hole was found in a very luminous quasar named J1342+0928. A quasar is described as the nucleus of a galaxy that is very luminous. Within this nucleus is a supermassive black hole that has a disk of gasses and other materials orbiting it. When this gas gets drawn towards the black hole, electromagnetic radiation is released. Quasar J1342+0928 is huge and has the mass of about 800 or more million of our sun. This quasar is extremely important because it gives us a glimpse of the universe as a "baby" so to speak. We can see about 690 million years after the Big Bang took place. In other words, the images we see is the light that is traveling to us now and shows an image of how the universe looked 690 million years after the Big Bang. In human age terms, the universe was about 5 years old at this time.

Light is the fastest singular thing that travels in spacetime. It travels at 186,282 miles per second. While that is extremely fast, it is not fast enough to travel in "real-time" around the universe. In fact, it takes 8 minutes for light from our sun to travel to earth. So when we look at the sun (which you should not do), we are seeing an image of the sun from 8 minutes ago. In effect, we are seeing the sun 8 minutes in the past. Similarly, when we look in the mirror, are not really seeing ourselves in what we consider "real-time." It takes about a billionth of a second for light to reflect from the mirror into our eyes. So the image we see of ourselves is the image of what we looked like a billionth of a second ago. It is mind-boggling, but this is how our universe works. So when we look at the night sky, we are looking into the past. We are seeing the stars how they looked billions of years ago depending on how close they are in relation to the earth.

The images astrophysicists saw of the quasar show the epoch of reionization period during the development of our universe. They figured this out because the hydrogen that surrounded the quasar was half neutral and half ionized. This indicates that the process of reionization was taking place. The Epoch of Reionization is a period in the universe's formation where medium or gasses in intergalactic space was ionized due to radiation or photonic activity. Hydrogen went from being neutral to being ionized. This discovery at quasar J1342+0928 will give us a lot of information on the beginnings of the universe. Current data shows that the universe is not eternal. It had a beginning after the Big Bang. The universe was a hot mix of energetic particles that began to expand rapidly. This expansion caused the early "embryonic" universe to cool down. At about 400,000 years, these particles cooled down enough to form neutral hydrogen gas. At this point, the universe was pitch black. Gravity then caused this matter to compress and form galaxies and stars. The light from these sources would then ionize the neutral hydrogen which allowed for photons to travel about without issue. The universe and its formation show an intricate pattern of design. We who believe in God can see God's handiwork in this.

Everything in the universe worked out so perfectly that it allowed for this universe to form the way it did allowing for life to exist. Recently, I was messaged by an alleged atheist who claims that the universe is eternal. He has contradicted science. I refuted him here: http://www.sacerdotus.com/2017/11/why-im-atheist-13-reasons-arguments-for.html. This same alleged atheist, later on, ran from debating me after he seemed to show interest and I sent him an invitation, see: http://www.sacerdotus.com/2017/12/atheistnthecity-afraid-to-debate.html. It is no surprise that an alleged atheist who lacks a grasp of science would be afraid to debate. His position is completely contrary to modern science. This new discovery shows more proof that our universe had a beginning and a cause.

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